An early high speed protocol for communications between a computer and a computer readable storage media device was the parallel bus based Small Computer System Interface (SCSI). A current protocol that replaces the original parallel bus based SCSI protocol is the serial based Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) protocol. An advancement for computer systems implementing SAS compatible device architectures was the addition of SAS expander physical devices. An SAS expander permits the creation of more complex interconnect topologies. An SAS expander expands the capabilities of a typical SAS controller and permits a larger number of target devices to be connected and accessed by a computer system than would be possible connecting the end devices directly to the physical ports of the SAS controller incorporated in the computer system. A further advancement for computer systems implementing SAS compatible device architectures is the incorporation of SAS zoning into the SAS protocol. SAS zoning provides for an ability to segregate and manage physical device traffic on the SAS buses interconnecting the physical devices. The access control functionality of SAS zoning is implemented on the SAS expanders. Using SAS zoning, SAS initiators and targets may not see the entire SAS architecture, but, instead, the initiators and targets may only see the portions of the SAS architecture configured to be in the zoning group that the initiators and targets have been given permission to access. In other words, by configuring zoning groups, a SAS topology may be implemented within the SAS architecture where devices may be effectively limited to access to and from other devices in the same zoning group.